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Blast from the Past (film)
Blast from the Past is a 1999 American romantic comedy film based on a story and directed by Hugh Wilson, and starring Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Sissy Spacek, and Dave Foley. The film focuses on a naive 35-year old man, Adam Webber, who spent his entire life living in a fallout shelter with his parents watching reruns of I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners and listening to Perry Como and Dean Martin. His father is relatively content to stay, while his mother copes by trying to cobble together atomic era cocktails. When Adam has to come out of the shelter to get more supplies, his old-fashioned attitudes and manners make him a hit with everyone he meets, and attracts the attentions of Eve Rustikoff. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a box office disappointment. Plot In 1962, eccentric American scientist Dr. Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) believes nuclear war with the Soviet Union is imminent, and builds a secret fallout shelter beneath his backyard. Alarmed by the Cuban Missile Crisis, Calvin takes his pregnant wife Helen (Sissy Spacek) into the shelter. When a fighter jet loses control and crashes into the house, Calvin assumes the worst and activates the shelter’s time-locks for 35 years. Helen gives birth to Adam, who is immersed in culture up to 1962, including TV reruns of I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners and listening to Perry Como and Dean Martin. A diner is built above the shelter, where Melcher (Joey Slotnick) works for Mom (Dale Raoul) as a soda jerk. The diner becomes a pub as the suburban neighborhood deteriorates throughout the decades into an inner city ghetto. Mom eventually gives the pub to Melcher; by 1995, he is an alcoholic living in its abandoned remains. When the shelter unlocks in 1999, Calvin mistakes the blighted neighborhood for a post-apocalyptic wasteland of irradiated mutants, and decides the family must stay underground. With supplies running out and Calvin falling ill, Adam (Brendan Fraser) leaves the shelter for the first time. He meets Melcher, who encountered Calvin the previous night, bursting through the floor in his radiation suit; Melcher now worships Calvin and the elevator. Marveling at the outside world, Adam purchases supplies, but cannot remember his way back to the pub. Trying to sell his father's classic baseball cards at a hobby shop, Adam meets Eve Rustikoff (Alicia Silverstone). She stops the store owner (Bill Gratton) from cheating Adam, and is fired. Eve drive Adam to a Holiday Inn in exchange for a rare card, but returns the next morning out of guilt. Adam asks her to help purchase supplies and, unaware of the value of money, agrees to her request for $1,000 a week. He also asks Eve to help him find a wife from Pasadena, California, per his mother's advice, who is "not a mutant". Adam meets Eve's gay housemate and best friend Troy (Dave Foley), who provides him with advice and a fashion makeover. Eve and Troy take Adam to a 1940s swing-style nightclub to find him a wife. Adam attracts the attention of several women, including Eve's nemesis Sophie (Carmen Moré). Jealous, Eve reconnects with her ex-boyfriend Cliff (Nathan Fillion), who goads Adam into an altercation, relenting when Adam demonstrates his boxing skills, having trained every day with his father; Eve leaves. Troy returns home and explains Adam went home with Sophie. Adam returns, explaining that he politely rejected Sophie's advances, as he could only think about Eve. He and Eve kiss, but when Adam admits the truth about his past and his desire to take her to be his wife "underground", she asks him to leave. Finding the pub, where Melchor preaches to a full congregation, Adam returns to Eve's house, where she is waiting with Dr. Nina Aron (Jenifer Lewis) and her assistant to have him committed. Initially cooperating, Adam escapes, asking Eve and Troy to collect his things and pay his hotel bill. In his hotel room, Troy and Eve find toiletries and clothing from the 1960s and absurdly valuable stocks in companies like IBM, and realize that Adam was telling the truth. As Melcher and his cult load supplies into the shelter, Calvin prepares to seal his family inside again. Eve spots Adam outside the pub; they embrace, and Adam takes her to meet his parents. Impressed with Eve, Calvin and Helen agree to set the shelter’s locks for two months while Adam and Eve make arrangements. During this time, Adam and Eve sell the stocks to build his parents a new home in the country, identical to their house that was destroyed, including a restored red 1960 Cadillac convertible. They help Melcher rebuild the pub into a '50s-themed nightclub after convincing him that Adam is not God. Adam reveals there was never an atomic war and the Soviet Union collapsed. Unconvinced, Calvin plans to build a new fallout shelter, as Eve plays with her engagement ring. Cast * Brendan Fraser as Adam Webber ** Hayden Tank as Adam Webber (age 3½) ** Ryan Sparks as Adam Webber (age 8) ** Douglas Smith as Adam Webber (age 11) * Alicia Silverstone as Eve Rustikoff * Christopher Walken as Calvin Webber * Sissy Spacek as Helen Webber * Dave Foley as Troy * Joey Slotnick as Melcher * Dale Raoul as Mom * Rex Linn as Dave * Bill Gratton as Eve's Boss * Nathan Fillion as Cliff * Jenifer Lewis as Dr. Nina Aron * Hugh Wilson as Levy * Cynthia Mace as Betty * Harry S. Murphy as Bob * Carmen Moré as Sophie Reception Critical reception The film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall score of 57% of the comments positive based on 80 reviews, with the consensus: "Cute idea, but not consistently funny". On Metacritic has a score of 48%. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars saying "the movie is funny and entertaining in all the usual ways, yes, but I was grateful that it tried for more: that it was actually about something, that it had an original premise, that it used satire and irony and had sly undercurrents." Box office Blast from the Past opened in North American theaters on February 12, 1999 and took in $7,771,066 earning it 5th place at the box office for the weekend. Soundtrack *"A Little Belief" – Celeste Prince *"Honey Please" – Sonichrome *"I See the Sun" – Tommy Henriksen *"I Will Buy You a New Life" – Everclear *"It's a Good Day" – Perry Como *"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" – R.E.M. *"Mr. Zoot Suit" – Flying Neutrinos *"Political Science" – Randy Newman *"Pretty Babies" – Dishwalla *"So Long Toots" – Cherry Poppin' Daddies *"Trou Macacq" – Squirrel Nut Zippers *"Drawing Flies" – Soundgarden References External links * * * * * Category:1999 films Category:New Line Cinema films Category:Live-action films Category:Films Category:Theatrical films Category:PG-rated films Category:G-rated films Category:R-rated films Category:PG-13 rated films